Finding content within your company that’s actually worth sharing

John Cass had a great interview with John Yunker last week on international content strategies. I hardly had to read past the first response to know there was going to be some good stuff in there:

John Y: “One of the most interesting developments that I see is that of companies coming to the stark realization that little of the content they produce is worth sharing. Creating content that people want to share with one another is really difficult. And Facebook and Twitter are forcing companies to take a more personal (and, hopefully, honest) approach to their content strategies.”

How. True.

There are so many traps companies fall into when they’re trying to get a content strategy off the ground:

It’s all about “me, me, me”

It’s a regurgitation of sales and marketing copy

There isn’t enough on-going engagement around the content

Readers and users are not integrated into the process

Content needs to get out ASAP or there isn’t enough time to produce content

There were a few good nuggets that came out of the interview that might be helpful:

“For large companies I’m seeing individual contributors becoming more prominent — beginning as Twitter authors and then, in some cases, migrating to blogs. But blogs are still rare. Twitter integration seems to be about where many companies are right now.”

“There is unease, particularly in some markets where culturally it’s wiser to not stand out too much. In the US it’s probably less of an issue…but given what Dell and others have done, I’d say the train has left the station.”

“Blogs are tough to maintain but I believe they offer greater long-term return. After all, what do your Twitter folks link to? If you don’t have a blog post to announce whatever new product you have? But that’s just my two cents…”

The key to sharing content is that it needs to be relevant and engaging. A blog is a great way to establish yourself as an industry expert. Post once a day and then promote the content using social media. It’s a great way to get targeted traffic to your blog and website.